We Know Him As Father

John 1:18, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him.”

To make this writing as brief as I possible, let me just jump directly to the meat of the word.

Now, it is through Christ, that we are made to see the Father. Before Christ came incarnate (made into human flesh as you and I), no man had ever fully seen God. This means that no man had ever seen the total nature of the Father ever before, and no man had fully seen the image of the Father before.

Here in our text, we have a beautiful portrait of who Christ is, “the only begotten Son of God.” But in the more earlier manuscripts of the bible, (before the King James Version was written), this portrait was written to literally say, “an only begotten, God” this is to say, Christ Jesus, the second in the Holy Trinity, is literally the express image of God the Father, made incarnate. So in other words, He and only He, is God, born into flesh. Now, do note, God the Father, and God the Son are two distinct beings. So by this verse we see Christ is made equal with God the Father. Do realize, there is no competition, nor jealousy between the Holy Trinity. They are all equal, and all everlasting.

Also in our text we see, the closeness of Christ, and the Father, “which is in the bosom of the Father”. This simply paints the portrait of a Father, and his son enjoying intimate fellowship. This portrait is to show that, through this deep intimacy Christ and His Father share, is how Christ is qualified to present the Father to us in such a total, and deep manner as He does.

So the writer says all this to sum his statement up with, “he hath declared Him.” He is in essence saying, “through the coming of Christ, the full and total exact nature of the Almighty God, was dispensed into Christ. And through this, Christ has brought us to know this God in a way never known to man before. Through Christ, we know Him as Father!!”

Beloved, grasp this! We are allowed to know, what those of the old testament longed for. We have been made to know God Almighty, as Father, through Christ.